Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,90

He nodded like a grinning idiot. He strummed quietly along at mezzo piano in support of my mezzo forte. Because he wanted to make sure everyone knew who the star was.

It was a short song, not much longer than three minutes. But still, it managed to convey an entire journey of stupefied longing by a hopeless (and hopelessly stoned) romantic on a train in love with a girl across the car. I kind of wished Gray hadn’t made me play this song, whose last line, as a friendly reminder, was:

I will never be with you.

But the song also had a charming ironic quality to it, something English, and the English ironic-ness suited Cirrus, so whatever, it didn’t matter at this point. Because now we had reached the end.

The timer ran out on the motion sensor floodlight, and it turned off.

“That was wonderful,” said a voice. An older woman’s voice. Cirrus’s mom?

I looked up. Still the house was dark. The voice wasn’t coming from there.

It was the condo next door.

“Uh, thank you,” I said. I waved an arm to turn the light back on.

“I loved singing telegrams when I was a child,” said my favorite somnambulist.

Gray spoke at a slow, constant pace. “It’s not a telegram. It’s a serenade.”

“Uh-oh,” said the woman.

Gray whispered to me, “You wanna try another song?”

The woman heard him. “I would love another song, but the Sohs left an hour ago. They won’t be back for months.”

“I thought it was tomorrow morning,” said Gray.

“They got a great deal on first-class seats,” said the woman.

“Sorry to disturb your sleep,” I said.

“You are very talented,” said the woman. “You are a natural.”

“I mostly fake it,” I said, and walked away.

V

Patiently watch and you’ll see them come back:

summertime meteors dazzling on black.

Doomed

What else was there to say?

Nothing.

I had just serenaded a painted box.

Like one of the millions of wretched unwanted outcasts silently screaming at the murderous uncaring world for even the tiniest shred of attention no matter how sneering and disdainful, I launched the monopolistic social media photo sharing app known as Snapstory. The Chinese city of Yiwu, according to my teary-eyed research, was home to the world’s largest wholesale market of dollar-store knickknacks that was ten times larger than the biggest mall in America. I wanted to see it through her eyes. I needed to.

But she was not on Snapstory.

I deleted the app. What was the point of using an app that had no one on it?

I drove Gray to LA—he had left his wallet with his driver’s license at Miss Mayhem—and being back on Sunset had felt like self-inflicted punishment. It had stung to see the club’s marquee blank and stripped of letters. Also stinging—and surreal—was the sight of three neighborhood homeless people each wearing Immortals shirts. They must’ve been abandoned, then donated by the venue. Cirrus would’ve been heartbroken. Or then again not, because now at least someone who really needed a shirt now had a shirt.

None of this should have happened.

If I had just been normal, Cirrus would’ve told her parents she wanted to stay and finish out Ruby High, and she would still be here.

Anyway.

School was school.

What was there to say about school?

Lockers. Class bells. The pantheon of student archetypes.

There were old friends, like Jamal and Milo.

There were new ones, like Gunner and August. They joined the SuJaMi guild, forming what I supposed was the SuJaMiAuGu crew now. It was actually kind of nice. Also inevitable, really, since we all shared a ludicrous history that stuck us together like wet gummy bears.

Gunner still bullied me, but now with body slams and bone-crushing high fives. I went to his games now and then, when they didn’t stir up too many memories. He came to my parties (bearing dice), and I went to his (bearing beer).

Was he the Bully anymore?

Was I the Nerd?

Maybe forget that pantheon.

I walked the halls, dressed neither in extinct dot-com swag nor Mortals-era black. I wore a plain tee shirt and plain jeans. My style had no name, because I was still figuring it out.

Wherever I walked, I caught the Look.

It was a different Look now, of course, always accompanied by whispers. I was sure everyone had some version of what they imagined had happened the night of the talent show. It didn’t matter. Interest would fade, like interest tends to do at school. The rumors would dry up. The Looks would cease. And I would slide back into obscurity from whence I had come.

I would just be a guy named Sunny.

There